


swapping your blood with formaldehyde

by orphan_account



Category: Loveless
Genre: M/M, Mild descriptions of violence, everything you would expect from the ship basically, really very abusive and unhealthy relationships, the ship is your content warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 17:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'The first time Seimei realises the job ahead of him might be easier than he’d previously speculated is when he pulls the knife from the breast pocket of his jacket, and flicks the blade open to catch the light from the dim bare bulb, and Soubi leans <i>towards</i> it rather than away.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	swapping your blood with formaldehyde

**Author's Note:**

> drabble, written and then forgotten about and then rediscovered. this is one of those ships I will probably never be able to get out of my head.

\--

The first time Seimei realises the job ahead of him might be easier than he’d previously speculated is when he pulls the knife from the breast pocket of his jacket, and flicks the blade open to catch the light from the dim bare bulb, and Soubi leans _towards_ it rather than away.

They’re in the shed at the bottom of the filthy overgrown section of the gardens round the back of the school, having met barely an hour previously. Outside the wind rustles tree branches and neglected lawns, and the draft coming in through the crack in the door is light and cool on the back of Seimei’s neck. Broken, dust-smeared glass clings to the splintering window panes, and there’s a smell of age and uncleanliness permeating the place that makes Seimei want to wrinkle his nose.

He doesn’t, of course. Soubi has gone very still – an unnatural, practiced kind of still, though his gaze is flickering between Seimei’s face and the knife in his hand.

“Ritsu taught you well, then,” says Seimei.

Soubi runs his tongue very quickly across his lips, and breathes in, and says, “He’s the best.”

“Wrong,” says Seimei, and when he opens Soubi’s shirt with the blade of the knife he opens a long, shallow cut down the centre of Soubi’s chest, too, “I am.”

He digs just the very tip of the knife into the juncture above Soubi’s clavicle, and twists it – the first thorn in what, when he’s finished, will be a necklace of them – and Soubi doesn’t move, but the corners of his mouth twitch and he can’t seem to meet Seimei’s eyes.

Seimei tilts his head to one side, and says, “Maybe not quite well enough.”

\--

The team they’re up against today is so fresh out of the academy that they might as well still be wearing their graduation robes. Two girls, with neat bobbed haircuts and practical shoes and faces that might as well be identical in expression if not in features. They fight in short, precise, _mathematical_ sentences, without wasting a breath.

It’s predictable and it’s boring – it’s an _insult_ , and a very personal one at that. It means the Beloved team is drawing the right kind of high-level attention.

“There’s no use in pitting water against their fire,” says Seimei without raising his voice, as most of the stagnant contents of the pond on the other side of the field hurtle towards their opponents and Soubi drops his arms to his sides, rubbing knuckles bruised from the heel of Seimei’s shoe. “It’s uninspired. Douse their flames with _soil_ , then melt their blades.”

The bandages at the front of Soubi’s neck are unravelling again. He presses two fingers to the front of them, where Seimei’s name is a half-hidden tangle of raised scars, and says, “Yes.”

“Show them who they’re dealing with,” Seimei says. His hair is whipped across his forehead in the gathering wind; static crackles visibly in the air around Soubi’s fingers. “And don’t allow them a single hit. I’ll give you three new cuts for every one they land on me, do you understand?”

“Yes,” says Soubi again, and this time it’s breathless and reverent; he steps forward, and calls the first staccato lines of his spell so they ring across the field like bullets. Beneath Seimei’s feet, the earth begins to tremble. He stands perfectly still, and waits.

\--

He spends the night in Soubi’s bed, when it gets too late or there’s too much blood on his coat to scrub off easily. Soubi takes the floor, though he doesn’t sleep on it: instead he sits straight-backed against the wall next to the bed all night, smoking cigarette after cigarette; a watchdog with the collar to match.

One night Seimei sits with a book open in his lap until the early hours of the morning. Soubi stays cross-legged at his side, as silent as he has been since they’d walked through the front door and Seimei had stopped him mid-sentence by saying, quiet and gentle, “Shut your mouth, and don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.”

Now, without looking up from his book, he says, “Soubi.”

“—Yes?”

“Tell me what’s going to happen now.”

A thin stream of smoke rises from the cigarette resting on the brim of the ashtray on the floor. Soubi says, “I don’t – ”

“I’ve told you. It’s only rote learning; repeat what I’ve told you.”

“… You’ll die. I’ll find Ritsuka.”

“Then?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Seimei can see Soubi turn to look up at him from the floor; he does not look round as Soubi replies. “I’ll transfer allegiance to Ritsuka. I’ll fight for him instead of for you.”

“Good. Do you believe me?”

“Of course,” says Soubi, at once: and then, after a moment in which he exhales smoke and glances away, “But your death is – not a concept I can easily conceive of.”

Seimei marks his page, sets the book aside, and turns where he sits to extend a hand toward Soubi.

Barely a heartbeat has passed before Soubi, very carefully and without a word, passes his cigarette by the filter to Seimei’s outstretched fingers before turning his wrist upward; Seimei presses the tip of it, slow and precise, into the skin on the inside of Soubi’s wrist.

There are countless ways of inflicting pain without skin touching skin, and Seimei knows most of them intimately.

Soubi gasps, and shakes a little, and digs his nails into the palm of his hand. He seems to be unable to decide whether he should look at Seimei or avert his gaze toward the floor. _Please_ , says the look in his eyes, _please_ ; Seimei has become well accustomed to it over the last three years.

“Well, then,” says Seimei, dropping the smoking cigarette into the ashtray by Soubi’s leg and picking his book back up, “I’ll have to make sure you can’t forget me, even when I’m gone, won’t I?”

\--


End file.
